


As If I Could Ever Be Forgiven

by SabineMichaelis



Series: 1995 [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Half-breed, M/M, a little melancholy, adult men with teenage problems, half-blood star, i'm not accepting the current ship name "snack", it's only mature because of coarse language, prince padfoot, this is a companion piece to another fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 11:27:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10943565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SabineMichaelis/pseuds/SabineMichaelis
Summary: In the summer before Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts, Snape and Black find themselves spending rather a lot of time together. They are not the way they remember each other. I suppose even these stubborn bastards can change.





	As If I Could Ever Be Forgiven

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a companion piece to another fic, which explains how they came to be spending so much time together in Spinner's End. Hint: it's Dumbledore's fault.

When was the last time someone had touched Severus Snape like this? A while ago, probably, and they had certainly been drunk off their heads. Inebriated is the only way he can do such things, and the only way anyone else is willing to come to close to him. He has no illusions about his appearance--pale and peaky from a life spent in the dark and creased into a permanent frown that he rarely finds reason to discard--or his personality--"acerbic" would be kind, "a right bastard" tend to be the words of choice when it comes to the the students who spend the most time around him. Not that he cares what other people think of him these days. He is beyond such schoolyard cares, and his reputation suits him well enough. Solitude becomes him. And it keeps everyone else safe.   
  
So, how to explain this man sharing his bed? A man who is kissing him gently, one hand stroking Severus' cheek and the other intertwined with Severus'. A man who is entirely sober and (for the most part) entirely sane.   
  
First, explain the man, Sirius Black. But that arouses more questions than it answers.   
  
There was a time when their relationship was defined by mutual hatred. Sirius had wanted to see him dead, and Severus had rejoiced at the thought of him turned into a soulless husk by the Dementors. But that was before, before Severus had known that Peter Pettigrew was alive, and that he had been the Potters' secret keeper. _He_ had been their betrayer and their murderer. Or rather, that Pettigrew held as much guilt for the murder of Lily Evans as Severus himself. Black had merely put his trust in the wrong man, and then failed in his attempt to avenge his best friend and been falsely blamed for his death.

 Then it was mutual dislike. Traitor or not, Sirius Black had made Severus's already unpleasant childhood into a living hell. He had turned his only friend against him and changed the sanctuary of the magical world into another kind of prison. But, Severus' childhood is now long ago and far away. His father, source of much pain, is long dead, as is his mother, the woman wished he could protect. Everyone else is grown and gone, their wounds from the past long since healed and scars faded.

  
Yet, here he is, living in the same horrid house he had spent endless sleepless nights dreaming of escaping, returning every September to the school that he had wanted so much to make his home.

 In his dreams, his father visits him, screaming and dragging Severus by his hair to Godric's Hollow, where he is strung up by his ankles and forced to watch as Lily dies shielding her son. Every night, he watches James face down the Dark Lord, seeing in his eyes that he knows the fight is hopeless, but doing it anyway. The bravery that cuts Severus to his very core, knowing as he stares that he could never have done the same. He had never even stood up to his father.   
  
Hell is waking up in a house that still smells like his parents, expecting every second to hear the tinkling of bottles and heavy footsteps. Hell is a bedroom upstairs that Severus dares not enter, though all it contains is a twin bed, an old trunk, and a wardrobe with tally marks scratched on the inside of the door--one for each strike. Hell is escaping this place only to stand between the two people he cannot bear to face--the boy with the eyes of his mother and the man the eyes of a monster. This is a living hell, this is prison, and Sirius Black has nothing to do with him being here.

But Sirius has everything to do with him lying in the bed in the middle of the day, his hands trembling as they trace the other man’s jawline.

The thing about dislike is that, unlike hatred, it requires a steady stream of evidence to prevent it from withering and dying. Without further provocation, dislike can become indifference. But indifference, too, has limits. When another person becomes human, when Black becomes Sirius, it becomes impossible to remain indifferent. 

There are many long, pensive looks between them, looks that Severus would never admit to. And they talk. There is little else to do in this cramped house, and Sirius becomes restless if he is left to brood in silence. When the sun is up, it’s rarely anything important. Sirius offers to help him with his work. Astonishingly, he can take orders if they are for tasks he finds worthwhile.

They lay side by side in the moonlight, and they hold each other when they wake up in tears. And they kiss--teary, fluttery, soft things that soothe. Things that barely qualify as kisses, and do not require explanation.

And when they fuck on the kitchen table--lust and loneliness and cabin fever--two solitary people seeking any kind of connection at four in the morning, that does not require explanation either. 

They talk about cooking and Sirius complains about how dry the potions tomes are until Severus caves and brings back a stack of back issues of the Prophet, a radio, and a wizard’s chess set from Diagon Alley. He also buys Sirius his own roll of parchment, because he’s sick of enchanted doodles and messages appearing on his notes. A cartoon dog trots across the ingredients list and a speech bubble appears above his open muzzle: “Buy milk.” 

Some things never change.

_This_ requires explanation. These sweet, open mouthed kisses in full daylight. The way Sirius’s hands massage lazy circles into his skin. The way Severus presses into his touch and makes a breathy, needy sound he has never uttered before and he can feel Sirius smiling into the kiss. Something _has_ changed. 

Never. No one has _ever_ touched Severus Snape like this--like he is worthy of love and forgiveness. Like he is loved. Like he is forgiven. And he has never touched another person this way before now.


End file.
